Intuity is Hardware Hacking – Creating new Tools

Prototyping is sometimes a fiddly thing. For example getting data from Arduino into AS3 usually turns into a real odyssee hence Flash cannot do serial connections due to security restrictions.

Up to now, there are three steps to make Arduino talk to Flash: After sending the data from Arduino to a serial port (1) you need to use a serial socket proxy to send it to a network port (2). In AS3 you finally have to use a socket library to parse the data (3).

How easy would it be if you received simple to handle keyboardEvents from a prototyped input device without destroying a USB keyboard to get some wires in…

1. What we’ve done

We tought our Arduino boards to swindle! They pretend to be USB Keyboards now. For rapid prototyping we produced a series of brutally simple and easy to use Arduino shields based on the instructions found here: code.rancidbacon.com/ProjectArduinoUSB (discontinued)

The Arduino code requires the library UsbKeyboard from code.rancidbacon.com/ProjectArduinoUSB (discontinued)

2. What is it good for

• Rapid arduino prototyping without serial socket stuff (saves many many lines of code)
• Interface with software that was never intended to be controlled by external custom hardware
• Create your own USB devices
• Easy and fast prototyping, countless applications
• Runs on (almost) every computer without installing drivers or additional software

3. Disadvantages

• Slow when sending long values

4. Download

• Feel free to etch your own board Download etchable PDF (discontinued)